Alphabet bets on lasers to deliver internet in remote areas

 


Alphabet, the parent company of Google, has previously attempted and failed to bring internet access to rural and remote areas using stratospheric balloons.Now, however, the company delivers internet service to remote areas using light beams.The Taara project is a part of Alphabet’s X innovation lab, also known as the “Moonshot Factory.” It was initiated in 2016 after attempts to deliver th internet via stratospheric balloons failed due to high costs, according to company executives.Taara’s leader, Mahesh Krishnaswamy, stated that things are progressing better this time.Executives from Taara and Bharti Airtel, two of India’s largest telecommunications and internet service providers, told Reuters that they are moving toward a larger-scale deployment of the new laser internet technology in India. No financial information was disclosed.Taara is currently helping to connect internet services in thirteen countries, including Australia, Kenya, and Fiji, according to Krishnaswamy. The company has also signed agreements with Econet Group and its subsidiary Liquid Telecom in Africa, internet provider Bluetown in India, and Digicel in the Pacific.“We are striving to be one of the cheapest and most affordable places for end users to obtain a dollar per gigabyte,” he explained.Taara’s traffic-light-sized machine, which is essentially fiber-optic internet without cables, beams the data-carrying laser. Partners like Airtel use the machines to build communications infrastructure in inaccessible locations.Krishnaswamy stated he had a revelation while working on the failed balloon internet project Loon, which used lasers to connect data between balloons and brought that technology to Earth.“We call this moonshot composting,” explained Astro Teller, the leader of X, where he is known as the “captain of moonshots.”X is the research division of Alphabet that works on projects that border science fiction. It spawned the autonomous driving technology company Waymo, the drone delivery service Wing, and the health technology startup Verily Life Sciences.“Taara transfers more data daily than Loon did in its entire history,” stated Teller.Randeep Sekhon, the chief technology officer of Bharti Airtel, stated that Taara will also assist in delivering faster internet service in urban areas of developed countries. He stated that beaming data between buildings is less expensive than burying fiber-optic cables. “This is extremely disruptive,” he stated.Recently, Krishnaswamy was in Osur, the village in India where he spent his childhood summers, three hours south of Chennai, to install Taara equipment. He stated that Osur will receive high-speed internet for the first time this summer.He stated, “There are hundreds of thousands of these villages in India.” “I can’t wait to see how this technology can be utilized to bring everyone online.”Google has committed $10 billion to digitize India by July 2020. Last year, it invested $700 million in a 1.28 percent stake in Bharti Airtel. X and Google are sister companies within Alphabet, whereas Taara’s partnership with Bharti Airtel is unrelated to Google’s investment.When asked about the downsides of the Internet as X and Taara push forward with their mission to connect the rest of the world, Teller responded, “I acknowledge that the Internet is imperfect, but I would suggest that improving the Internet’s content should be the subject of a different moonshot.” 

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